Happy 3rd Birthday Elsie!

 My big girl is 3 years old!!! Holy crap :) She is such a caring, quick-witted, thoughtful, smiley (except if she's tired) little girl. Thinking back, the past year has been a whirlwind! She was a pretty great talker for a 2 year old, and she has built up her vocabulary and abstract thinking skills, so now she is coming up with arguments or making deals to get things she wants, and planning ahead/looking forward to future events or remembering past events. It's all so amazing how much she has grown in mind and body. I'm definitely biased, but that doesn't change the fact that she has always been ahead of her developmental time in walking, talking, reasoning, and gross motor development. <3

We had her party in Madison this year because I knew I was going to buy her a big bouncy house and I wanted to be able to keep it up all week (and more). We were lucky to have Gma Elsie, Gpa Ron, Gma Melanie, Gpa Mark, Laura, Lena and Nathan stop by for the weekend and celebrate with all of us! In the morning, R/E took the girls for a walk while we got the big bounce house set up so it would be a surprise. And it certainly was :) I got a video but she and Lena LOVED bouncing around it all day. They were both super tuckered out by the end of the day. We had lunch around 1130, a 2 hour nap for Lena and chill break for everyone! Then Mark and Melanie stopped by and we had a pizza/salad dinner, more bouncing, watching some basketball, lots of chit chat which was nice, and a Frozen cake, and open some presents. Lovely, chill but fun day. Thanks everyone for coming!

Elsie's first day of school!

 

Today was Elsie’s first day of preschool at Toad Hill Montessori, here in East Madison!

Strategic decision for Spencer to drop her off, both for her sake of saying good-bye to me and vice versa. He said there was a line of cars waiting to drop kids off, and she was super excited and kept asking “is it our turn yet”? So she probably would have been fine. I def had a good 5 minute meltdown of “my baby’s going to school” after they drove off, but overall I was really excited for her.

 

When she got back she looked super tired, and she said her feet were sweaty (which they were since she wore tennis shoes and socks for 4 hours for the first time ever in her life). Questions I asked:

 

How was your first day?

“Good!”

 

Do you want to go back?

“Yes! Tomorrow I can go back and see my friends.”

 

What did you do?

“We played outside with our friends a lot!”

She had paint all over her shirt as well, so they must have been doing an art project of some sort 😉 And the school sent a couple of pictures of the kids playing with magnet tiles, and of Elsie doing a string art project.

Do you like your teachers?

“Yes”

What are their names?

“Um, I don’t know”

 

First packed lunch: peanut butter sandwich, blueberries, applesauce pouch, chocolate chip pancakes. She crushed the blueberries and pancakes, didn't eat much else. She felt bad that she forgot her lunch box at school, but then we found it in her backpack so that made her happy. Then she crushed a strawberry banana yogurt when we got home.

She was super tired and probably would have fallen asleep on car ride home, if it wasn’t so short. She asked if she could go on her Fire right when she got home, I think she needed a mental “break”, haha. I'm so glad she had a great first day!